Jennifer Grimes / The Post-Standard, 2001Hanford Pharmaceuticals employees remove plastic from trays of glass vials to clean and sterilize them before they can be filled. The company has sold its plant on West Street in Syracuse to the New Jersey company Steri-Pharma LLC.Syracuse, NY-- Hanford Pharmaceuticals has sold its West Street plant to a New Jersey company for an undisclosed amount, the company said this morning.

The plant, which made the antibiotic cephalosporin, was under performing, said George W. Hanford, chief executive officer of the privately held company.

The West Street plant was bought by Steri-Pharma LLC, a New Jersey company. Steri-Pharma plans to continue operating the plant, Hanford said.

“They should be hiring people in the next couple of months,” he said.

For now Hanford continues to make a non-sterile ointment for animals in a portion of the building it is leasing from the new owners, Hanford said. The company employs about 24 people at West Street, he said.

Hanford intends to use the money from the sale of the West Street plant to redevelop an 84,000 square-foot building it leases on Crossroads Park Drive in Clay. It plans to convert the building into a manufacturing warehouse and laboratory for making clinical trial quantities of drugs for other companies, Hanford said.

The company will continue to operate the antibiotic plant based at its headquarter's on Oneida Street, he said.

At 163-years-old, Hanford is one of the oldest companies in Syracuse, and employs about 140 workers. The company makes antibiotics used by humans and animals. It also finishes drugs for other companies and has made clinical trial drugs for other companies, Hanford said.

Those kinds of drugs earn higher profits for the company, but require less manufacturing capacity, Hanford said. It also could give the company an opportunity to grow, he said.